Sunday, January 21, 2007

Sunday Stammerings

Pour out a little liquor for a fallen homeboy. Former Phillies pitching coach, Vern Ruhle, passed away Saturday after a long battle with cancer. Vern was only 55 years old. He was the Phils pitching coach from 2001-02, and had a 13 year career of his own winning 67 games for a mixture of teams including Detroit and Houston.

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My current favorite Phillie and best 2-sacker in MLB just got rewarded with a 7 year $85 million deal. Chase Utley is freaking awesome, and having him on the team for the foreseeable future is a good thing. Like I said yesterday, "The Phillies phuture is so bright, that they gotta wear shades". This may seem like a lot of years and a lot of money, but he's worth it and this will be considered chump's change by the time the contract is up in 2013. All the World Series titles that will come between now and then will more than make up for it.

i'm super happy for chase, but this signing is exactly like the burrell contract (at the time). obviously i want chase around, but i dont think he was eligable for free agency for 2-3 more years from now....what's the rush

I look at this like the big contract the Eagles gave McNabb way back when, locking up your best player at what looks to be below market value is always a good deal. The craziness of this year's market (Utley = 2/3 the value of Barry Zito??) just makes it that much better.

And RIP Vern Ruhle, looking back at what he had to work with during the two years he was here it's amazing that team did as well as it did...

It is true that Utley wasn't up for free agency for another 2-3 seasons, but the Phils and Utley's camp were far off in contract offers this offseason. He wants some 2 million more than they were offering. This deal gets rid of all that bullcrap in the following offseasons, which lends to a better working relationship between player and organization.

By the way, say what you will about the Burrell deal, but my guess is that he would fetch close to 13 million a season on the open market anyway.